With Mipwr, A Hand Is All You Need To Charge Your iPhone

Back-up batteries and solar chargers are fine, but if you’re in a real emergency where phone power is a must, both can be cumbersome and time-consuming. A new gadget on Kickstarter clears through the clutter and puts the power back in your hands–literally.

The Mipwr Dynamo is a protective case, backup battery, and hybrid charger all in one. In the event that both your phone’s battery and the backup battery are running on empty, a lever protruding from the case allows recharge by generating your own electricity.

Using the age-old principles of electromagnetic induction, the Mipwr dynamo case allows smartphone users to breathe easier, knowing that they’re never more than a few cranks away from adequate power levels.

“In the event you exhaust both the cell phone battery and Mipwr’s backup battery (that will give you 2 extra hours of talk time) – you can pump the push lever to produce 30 seconds of talk/text for 1 minute of pumping. These efforts will create enough battery power to make a distress call or text at a moment’s notice,” write the designers on the device’s Kickstarter page.

If there’s one thing no iPhone owner wants its more bulk. That’s why Mipwr’s lever is neatly concealed in the case profile, where it can fold away into a closed position when not needed. The lever is kept in closed position with a small slide switch on the opposite side wall of case and there is even a built in charging port to accept the iPhone 5/5S charger. No outlet handy? Just pop out the lever and start squeezing.

Although the idea is pretty brilliant, Mipwr is miles away from its $78,000 fundraising goal. Maybe it’s the weird name? Hopefully they’ll try again if this campaign is a bust, because we’d love to see one of these in action.

Beth Buczynski is a freelancer writer and editor currently living in the Rocky Mountain West. Her articles appear on Care2, Ecosalon and Inhabitat, just to name a few. So far, Beth has lived in or near three major U.S. mountain ranges, and is passionate about protecting the important ecosystems they represent. Follow Beth on Twitter as @ecosphericblog